Jackhammers are often used to open up or fracture a hard surface, such as concrete cement and rock formations. They are widely used in construction sites for preparation work, demolition and removal of concrete slabs, bricks and rocks as well as conducting maintenance or repair of plumbing or electrical wiring by electrical utility companies. Conventional jackhammers, also called pneumatic hammers, use compressed air to drive a metal piston up and down inside a cylinder. As the piston moves downward, it pounds the drill bit in the distal direction and into the target surface, e.g., the pavement, before reversing its direction and moving upward.
There are many drawbacks associated with the use of a pneumatic jackhammer that limit its applications. One of these drawbacks is the enormous acoustic noise that makes its use outside normal work hours nearly prohibitive in residential neighborhoods. Another drawback involves the violent back-pulsations during the operation of a pneumatic jackhammer, which require large axial forces and large holding torques during operation. In addition, the back-pulsations that propagate into the hand and body of the operators can cause severe damage and pose serious work hazards. Reported incidents include the dislocation and extraction of dentures from the operators' mouths. The cutting action by a pneumatic jackhammer is indiscriminate and every object it encounters along its path will be damaged. In utilities maintenance work, for example, this drawback becomes critical since it is imperative for workers to avoid damaging wires, plumbing conduits, reinforcement rebar and other fixtures.
These and other drawbacks such as high power consumption not only limit the conventional jackhammer's use in construction and utility maintenance, but also in medical surgeries, robotic operations, archeology, and geological explorations including space expeditions. Specifically for space expeditions, since many planets or other celestial bodies do not have as large an atmospheric pressure as is present on the Earth, it would be difficult to produce the type of pneumatic forces that are generated on the Earth to drive a conventional jackhammer. Therefore, the need for a new kind of jackhammer is widely felt across many industries and research fields.